Friday Fictioneers – Portent

Between the Pharaonic pillar and the insect there is a terrible connection. My heart batters its bone cage and my breath comes in gasps. Between the bug and the finial of the balustrade there is also a connection. The locust bestrides the ornate globe, moving up from Africa. Selling insurance is my trade, but even I know we’re in the presence of a portent.

A plague, a Biblical plague, is coming. I seize Seymour’s hand as the sky darkens with a million tiny wings.

“What is it, honey?” he says.

“Don’t you see them?” I say. “Don’t you hear them?”

Friday fictioneers is a weekly challenge set by Rochelle Wisoff Fields to write a 100-word story in response to a photo prompt. You can find other stories here.

Fancy sharpening your skill with writing exercises? The Scrivener’s Forge offers a new exercise every month to hone one aspect of your craft. Take a look at this month’s exercise on character, desire, and suspense here

The plagues of Egypt.I did a locust story the last time we had a grasshopper picture for FF. This one is is really tense…nicely done. One of my favorite locust swarm stories was in Lonesome Dove, but Steinbeck probably takes the prize.

My heart batters its bone cage Love this line.
One summer I experienced a grasshopper plague. The little monsters ate all the leaves off the sagebrush (I was in Eastern Washington doing archaeology) and the screening on my canvas tent. The tic-tic of their bodies on – well everything – was the worst. You caught the horror of an oncoming plague nicely.